Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (file photo) (ITAR-TASS)
September 8, 2006 -- The United Nations' top human rights official is urging the United States to abolish secret prisons.

A spokesman for Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Arbour viewed as "significant" a statement by U.S. President George W. Bush on September 6 in which he acknowledged that the United States has covertly held prisoners overseas.

However, she also urged that the program of secret detention be completely abolished.

Poland and Romania have been under suspicion that they may have hosted secret CIA detention facilities.

Poland on September 7 again denied hosting such facilities, while the Romanian government did the same on September 8.